Vocal Music

Yellow Hair (1960) Duration 2 minutes30 seconds: soprano and piano. Words “for Anne Gregory” by W. B. Yeats. First performed by Annon Lee Silver with the composer, Royal College of Music, 24 October 1960. Composer or Scottish Music Centre ( Sale )

A Muse of Love (1962) Duration 10 minutes
Five Elizabethan Love Lyrics. Songs for tenor and piano, all of them simple and direct in style.

What Thing is Love? (George Peele)
When to Her Lute Corinna Sings (Thomas Campion)
O Gentle Love (George Peele)
Cupid and my Campaspe Played (John Lyly)
Take O Take Those Lips Away (William Shakespeare)
Composer or Scottish Music Centre (Sale or Hire)
(originally with Boosey and Hawkes)

An arrangement of the songs for flute, violin, viola, cello and harp is also available on hire from the Scottish Music Centre.

(Cupid and My Campaspe is also included in A Heritage of 20th Century British SongVolume 3 published by Boosey and Hawkes)

Eight Songs from the Chinese (1963) Duration 14 minutes: baritone and piano
Words translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley. First performed by Harvey Alan and Frederick Stone, BBC Radio 3, 6 July, 1965.
(They can also be successfully performed by Countertenor and Piano.)

The Little Cart; Flood; The Pedlar of Spells; Plucking the Rushes; New Corn; A Soldiers Song; The Little Lady of Ch¹ing Hsi; The Herd Boy.
Alfred Lengnick & Co (Sale) Catalogue No. 4235

Bairnrhymes (1963) Duration 5 minutes: unison voices and piano
Three songs to words in Scots by William Soutar for childrens’ voices (or solo soprano or tenor) and piano .

The Lanely Müne; The Daft Tree; Sang. Novello & Company Ltd (Sale)

Three Songs from Old Rhymes (1964) Duration 5 minutes: unison voices and piano
Three songs, written in Rome, to anonymous traditional words, for childrens’ voices (or solo soprano or tenor) and piano .

I Saw a Peacock; Tarry Œoo; There was a King
Novello & Company Ltd (Sale)
No. 1: catalogue No. EA 902
No. 2: published separately Cat No 160142 (also EA 903)
No. 3: catalogue No. EA904

My Song is in Sighing (1964) Duration 3 minutes.
Solo soprano or treble or tenor with organ or piano
Novello & Company Ltd (Sale) Catalogue No:160144
also included in: High Praise, a book of anthems for upper-voice choirs, selected and edited by Barry Rose
Novello & Company Ltd ISBN 0-85360-848-2
CD recordings Anne Marie Boylan (soprano),  (The Armagh Girl Singers, directed by Nigel McClintock), Ian Keatley (organ)
Praise on Hi, Lammas Record, LAMM 117
and
The Girl Choristers of Wells Cathedral
Director: Malcolm Archer, Organ: Rupert Gough
Lammas Records, LAMM 135
Both available from Lammas Records, 34 Carlisle Avenue, St Albans Herts, AL3 5LU Tel & Fax: 01727 851553 at £9.99 plus £1.00 P&P

Wanderer (1964) Duration 13 minutes: mezzo-soprano and piano
Song-cycle on words translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley. Commissioned by the Saltire Society, Edinburgh, and first performed by Constance Kennedy Mullay and Alex Kelly.
On board ship; Starting Early; In the North West; Self Abandonment; Crossing the River.
Music Sales (Ricordi/Novello)

The Fiddler (1967) Duration 10 minutes: soprano (or tenor) and violin
Song cycle to words by William Soutar. First performed by Jane Manning and Nella Wissema at Glasgow University on 18 January 1971.
The Fiddler; Ae Simmer’s Day; The Bubblyjock; Cradle Sang; The Thistle
Novello & Company Ltd

Cantica (1969) Duration 12 minutes: soprano or tenor, clarinet, viola and piano

Settings of poems by Tommaso Campanella. Commissioned by the Clifton Ensemble, and first performed by them at the Purcell, Room, London, on 4 June 1969. Novello & Company Ltd (Hire)

The Keeper of the Pass (1971) Duration 17 minutes: soprano, clt(Eb), clt(bclt), clt(ten sax), pno, perc.
Commissioned by the Edinburgh International Festival for Jane Manning and the Matrix Ensemble, who first performed it in Edinburgh on 4 September 1971.

Words from the Chinese Book of Changes, Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), early Christian writings, Mother Julian of Norwich, The Didache and Nietzsche.
Novello & Company Ltd (Hire)

Antoinette Alone (1980) Duration 20 minutes: mezzo soprano and piano
Words from Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Commissioned by Masterconcerts Ltd, Glasgow, and first performed by Linda Hirst and Roger Vignoles for a BBC Radio 3 broadcast on 19 September 1981.
Novello & Company Ltd

Five Sonnets from Scotland (1985) Duration 12 minutes: soprano, tenor and piano
Words by Edwin Morgan. Commissioned by Kathleen and Neil Mackie as a tribute to Sir Peter Pears’ 75th birthday, with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. First performance on 17 March 1986, at the Cowdray Hall in Aberdeen.

Matthew Paris, Colloquy in Glaschu, The Picts, Caledonian Antiyzygy, The Summons. Novello & Company Ltd

Cantata: John Clare’s Vision (1993) Duration 29 minutes: Soprano (or tenor) and strings (minimum 33221)
Composer or Scottish Music Centre (Hire)
See also under Orchestral Music

Sunbeam for Sheba (2002)  Duration 3 minutes 45 seconds: soprano or  tenor and piano (words by Donna McDonald)
Written for Flora Stagg to perform at the Birmingham Competitive Music Festival on 2 November 2002. (She gave an earlier private performance with Stuart Smith (piano) in the Unitarian Church, Warwick, on Friday 11 October 2002.)  Scottish Music Information Centre (Sale)

…..on the wings of the wind (2006) Duration 4 minutes. A setting of part of Psalm 104 for high voices and piano (or organ — see also Choral Music). Composer or Scottish Music Centre ( Sale )

Three Songs for children’s voices and piano (2006): In 2006, as part of its tenth anniversary celebrations, the National Youth Choir of Scotland commissioned ten composers based in Scotland each to write three songs. They were to be written for different age groups and corresponding abilities.
Where the Green Grass Grows (anon) Duration 2 minutes. Pentatonic — no accidentals.
Skylark (words “Shelley’s Skylark” by Thomas Hardy) Duration 4 minutes. Diatonic — no accidentals
Mad Song (The Hag by Robert Herrick)  Duration 1 minute 30 seconds. Diatonic with a few accidentals
National Youth Choir of Scotland : published in 3 separate volumes: singbronze! singsilver! singgold!)
National Youth Choir of Scotland

The Shulamite’s Song (2013) Duration 9 minutes
A setting for soprano, tenor recorder and piano of words from Canticum Canticorum for David Ellis’ 80th birthday.